It has long been recognized that the personal involvement in round-the-table conferences between individuals and groups genuinely seeking to reach a point of agreement can be highly productive. This is considered to be due in large part to the unconscious communication taking place by eye contact, physical gestures or body language, and a considerable amount of instantaneous mind to mind communication that is taking place by reason of the close proximity of the participants, and frequently sensed by feelings of elation or euphoria by individual participants as the conference is progressing.
These phenomena provide what is being referred to as real time or instantaneous communication brought on by the fact that the conscious thinking and the unconscious thinking, or "gut reaction", of the individuals have been brought into synchronism to avoid the regular time delays as one is influencing the other.
In the modern world of big governments, multi-national corporations, and the general need for global communication, it is increasingly difficult, as well as tremendously expensive and time consuming to take advantage of the above mentioned benefits of round-the-table conferences; and to an increasing extent, needed conferences are being arranged via Integrated Services Digital Networks (I.S.D.N.). Such networks inherently integrate channels of telephone communication, television and computers to establish visual and audio communication between conferring groups and individuals regardless of their physical or geographical separation.
While present technology permits excellent audio and visual communication in such systems, users of such systems report that something is missing, as compared with the experience of round-the-table discussion. There is not the feeling of togetherness, and frequently at the end of a conference it remains questionable whether a true "meeting of the minds" has been reached.
From considerable experience in the field, and extensive searching of the prior art, any prior progress in dealing with this somewhat nebulous but very real problem currently experienced in I.S.D.N. conferencing is unknown.